If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

I agree that "Death on the Mississippi" and "Amendment XXV" are the two worst levels in Blood Money (and I'd include "Flatline" as well), but I'd say their biggest flaws are exactly the same ones Absolution suffers from. Linear design with only a few options, small areas that are interconnected rather than one big sandbox and useless disguises.

If you're going for Silent Assassin, there are only a few ways to go through a given mission (unless you're willing to abuse the AI), but you're never required to do that. You can also complete the opera level by sniping both targets. Or by dressing up as actor and going out on the stage yourself. Or by pushing the opera singer down the stairs. Or strangling him in his room. Or just going on a crazy rampage.

None of these options will give you a Silent Assassin rating, but playing Blood Money isn't about the score, it's about doing what you want to. The joy in replaying the game is discovering new alternatives that you never thought of before or accomplishing goals that you thought couldn't possibly work. It's one of the best games to try challenge runs on.

And I'm not really seeing how Absolution's replay value is so much higher. The levels are as static as they were before. There is no random element involved, so once you found a good strategy you'll always be able to pull it off. Except now there's even less possibilities to complete any given mission which also means less playthroughs until you've seen everything. Contracts mode can switch the experience around a bit, but ultimately you're still operating within the same parameters. Once we get an actual level editor we might see people take advantage of Absolution's gameplay improvements (and there are quite a few improvements, don't get me wrong) but until then we're stuck with the levels that are in the vanilla game.

You're right that cinematic takedowns and any other nonsensical nit-picks like that aren't a problem in Absolution. Its problems lie in the design approach. It tries too much to be a stealth game, or more specifically a stealth game in the tradition of the Thief series. You operate within a hostile area, you rely on distracting your enemies, taking them out silently or sneaking past to advance further. Blood Money was never like that, there aren't any prolonged stealth sections where you have to crouch and use cover. It was about exploration and puzzles (and trial-and-error admittedly). At the end of every mission your target is supposed to be dead. How that is accomplished is up to you. Absolution doesn't just tell you what to do, it often also tells you how to do it.

"Rosewood" is a good example of that. Everyone in the level is inherently hostile to you, so you get no opportunity to calmly survey the area before planning your approach. Since there is only one type of enemy, disguises are completely useless. Furthermore, the level requires you to collect four fuses that are strewn all over the level which means you're required to visit almost all available rooms. Ultimately, what this means is that there's little variance in how you can approach the level, every stealthy playthrough will look mostly the same.

Absolution isn't a bad game, the production values are fantastic, the gameplay is smooth and it does have some memorable set pieces. But it's a pale shadow of Blood Money, or perhaps more importantly, of the potential inherent in Blood Money's design. Yes, Blood Money was often clunky, obtuse and at times frustrating, but that's because it tried. It tried to give the player a unique experience and quite often it succeeded. Absolution doesn't try. It's content to sit among all other stealth games, never risking and never innovating. It looks a bit nicer and it plays a bit better than most examples of the genre do, but the key elements that made the Hitman series so special in the first place are gone.

This is a well reasoned counter argument. Absolution tried to do 2 things: retain several sandboxy levels, while also incorporating more tense linear levels that still allow for replayability via Contracts. I think people would have much less of a problem with the linearity if the sandbox levels were better.

For example, the nightclub Absolution level is kind of .. small, cramped, and easy, though, I think. I beat it relatively quickly and easily just by hiding in the bathroom and knifing the guy -- his patrol pattern was short and ridiculously predictable and vulnerable. I loved King of Chinatown, but it could've benefited from more space and more targets (which they tried to do by recycling the level later, but it's still cramped).

One legit complaint about the game would be the difficulty settings. On normal it feels more hitman than it does on hard and above. The extra guards on hard don't feel "balanced" towards stealthy play. Can you silently and without deaths complete the king of chinatown on hard?

I agree that "Death on the Mississippi" and "Amendment XXV" are the two worst levels in Blood Money (and I'd include "Flatline" as well), but I'd say their biggest flaws are exactly the same ones Absolution suffers from. Linear design with only a few options, small areas that are interconnected rather than one big sandbox and useless disguises.

If you're going for Silent Assassin, there are only a few ways to go through a given mission (unless you're willing to abuse the AI), but you're never required to do that. You can also complete the opera level by sniping both targets. Or by dressing up as actor and going out on the stage yourself. Or by pushing the opera singer down the stairs. Or strangling him in his room. Or just going on a crazy rampage.

None of these options will give you a Silent Assassin rating, but playing Blood Money isn't about the score, it's about doing what you want to. The joy in replaying the game is discovering new alternatives that you never thought of before or accomplishing goals that you thought couldn't possibly work. It's one of the best games to try challenge runs on.

And I'm not really seeing how Absolution's replay value is so much higher. The levels are as static as they were before. There is no random element involved, so once you found a good strategy you'll always be able to pull it off. Except now there's even less possibilities to complete any given mission which also means less playthroughs until you've seen everything. Contracts mode can switch the experience around a bit, but ultimately you're still operating within the same parameters. Once we get an actual level editor we might see people take advantage of Absolution's gameplay improvements (and there are quite a few improvements, don't get me wrong) but until then we're stuck with the levels that are in the vanilla game.

You're right that cinematic takedowns and any other nonsensical nit-picks like that aren't a problem in Absolution. Its problems lie in the design approach. It tries too much to be a stealth game, or more specifically a stealth game in the tradition of the Thief series. You operate within a hostile area, you rely on distracting your enemies, taking them out silently or sneaking past to advance further. Blood Money was never like that, there aren't any prolonged stealth sections where you have to crouch and use cover. It was about exploration and puzzles (and trial-and-error admittedly). At the end of every mission your target is supposed to be dead. How that is accomplished is up to you. Absolution doesn't just tell you what to do, it often also tells you how to do it.

"Rosewood" is a good example of that. Everyone in the level is inherently hostile to you, so you get no opportunity to calmly survey the area before planning your approach. Since there is only one type of enemy, disguises are completely useless. Furthermore, the level requires you to collect four fuses that are strewn all over the level which means you're required to visit almost all available rooms. Ultimately, what this means is that there's little variance in how you can approach the level, every stealthy playthrough will look mostly the same.

Absolution isn't a bad game, the production values are fantastic, the gameplay is smooth and it does have some memorable set pieces. But it's a pale shadow of Blood Money, or perhaps more importantly, of the potential inherent in Blood Money's design. Yes, Blood Money was often clunky, obtuse and at times frustrating, but that's because it tried. It tried to give the player a unique experience and quite often it succeeded. Absolution doesn't try. It's content to sit among all other stealth games, never risking and never innovating. It looks a bit nicer and it plays a bit better than most examples of the genre do, but the key elements that made the Hitman series so special in the first place are gone.

For some reason the forum deleted my response to this. Basically, I really liked this post. "Rosewood" isn't a great level. One or two of those in the game is fine, but it's just too much.

I think the ideal Hitman game has big levels like Blood Money's but adds a much more comprehensive level editor allowing you to set numerous parameters. That would be so unbelievably good. I like Absolution's step towards that with Contracts, but there's too little control over the scenario's scripting.

To the game's credit, I believe achieving Silent Assassin is possible on every mission and on every difficulty. Though sometimes the timing is very strict and on Purist you can essentially forget about using disguises altogether.